With 12 matches now left to play in the league stage of IPL 2022, there still remain as many as 4,096 possible combinations of results. That's down from 8,192 possibilities as of the morning of Wednesday, May 11.
TOI looks at each of the current 4,096 possibilities (on the morning of May 12) to calculate the chances of individual teams making the playoffs.
As of the morning of Thursday, May 12, GT is the only team that has qualified for the playoffs and MI the only one that is officially out of the playoffs race. Here is what the various playoffs permutations and combinations look like right now:
* MI is out of the reckoning for a playoff spot
* CSK's chances of finishing third or fourth on points have risen a touch to 4.8%, but to do that they need to win their three remaining matches
* Even if CSK does finish third or fourth on points, they could miss out with anywhere between four to seven teams tied at third or two to six teams tied at fourth spot on 14 points
* KKR's chances of making the fourth spot on points have risen slightly to 7%, but like CSK the best they can hope for is tied third with four to seven teams vying or tied fourth with two to six teams contending
* DC have significantly raised their chances of making it to the top four slots on points to 40.6% but they cannot top the points table
* PBKS' chances of a top four finish have also improved to 26.6% but, like DC, they can no longer top the points table
* SRH's chances of finishing in the top four spots on points are a tad lower at 23.4% and they too cannot finish at the top of the points table
* RCB's chances of making it to one of the top four slots on points have dropped a touch to 88.7%. At worst, they'll finish sixth on points
* RR, despite their loss on Wednesday, have a 91.8% chance of finishing among the top four in terms of points. But they can still drop as low as joint sixth if they lose their remaining games
* LSG in its first IPL season is also certain to get to the top four slots on points. But it could lose out on the playoffs by ending up at 16 points in even a five-way tie for second spot, a four-way tie for third spot or a three-way tie for fourth spot
* GT, also in its first IPL season, has ensured qualification and can do no worse than a four-way tie for top spot in which it ends up fourth on net run rate
* In short, bet on GT, LSG, RR and RCB making it to the playoffs with DC, PBKS and SRH having a relatively small chance of displacing RR or RCB in the playoffs race. Anything else would be a long shot
How we calculate these probabilities:
We looked at all 4,096 possible combinations of results with 12 matches remaining in the league stage. We assumed that for any given match the chances of either side winning are even. We then looked at how many of the combinations put each team in one of the top four slots by points. That gives us our probability number. To take a specific example, of the 4,096 possible result combinations, RCB finished first to fourth on points in 3,632 combinations. That translates to a 88.7% chance. We do not take net run rates or "no results" into consideration because predicting those in advance is impossible.
Come back for our updated predictions Friday (May 13) morning, which will take into account the results of Thursday's match.
